| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. 
Shelf i 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE MINISTER AND PARISH: 



DISCOURSE 



THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OP HIS ORDINATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE 



SECOND CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN WORCESTER, 



March 28, 1852. 



BY ALONZO HILT, 



Pit TNT ED FOR THE U SE OF T H F, SOCIETY. 




WORCESTER: Sj) 
ANDREW HUTCHINSON. 
1852. 



" Our bishopricks are a great and weighty care ; and, in a spiritual sense, our 
dominion is founded in grace, and our rule is in the hearts of the people, and 
our strengths are the powers of the Holy Ghost, and the weapons of our warfare are 
spiritual ; and the eye of God watches over us curiously, to see if we watch over cur 
flecks by day and by night. And though the primitive church, when they deposed a 
bishop from his office, ever concealed his crimes, and made no record of it, yet 
remember this, that God does and will call us to a strict and severe account." — 
Jeremy Taylor. 



boston: 
printed by john "wilson and sox, 

22, School Stkeex. 



DISCOURSE. 



ACTS, XXVI. 22. 

HAVING, THEREFORE, OBTAINED HELP OF GOD, I CONTINUE UNTO THIS DAY, 
WITNESSING BOTH TO SMALL AND GREAT. 

On Wednesday, March 28, 1827, I was ordained pas- 
tor of this church. It is just twenty-five years this 
day, since, after seven weeks' probation, I first stood 
in your pulpit as your settled minister. Whatever 
interest the fact may awaken in the minds of others, 
to me the anniversary comes crowded with associa- 
tions and recollections deeply affecting. The scene is 
all before me now in its minute particulars ; the 
aspects of the sky return, the actors again arrange 
themselves around, and the emotions of the hour 
revive afresh. I well remember it: it was a spring 
morning ; the mists hung heavily, and the rains fell ; 
but, before noon, the sun broke through the cloud, 
harbinger of our hope, when, in yonder edifice, the 
first meeting-house of this society, now so happily 
devoted to the education of your children, I ap- 



4 



proached your altar, and took upon me my ordination- 
vows. The forms of fathers and brethren, loved and 
venerable, who took part in the consecration-service, 
rise up before me distinctly, as if they were here but 
yesterday. I listen again to the eloquent and earnest 
tones of Brazer, who preached the sermon ; I see 
again the hands of Kirkland and Harris and Allen, 
lifted in prayer for our mutual guidance ; I hear 
again the solemn charge of Bancroft ; and the impres- 
sive tones of Thayer, as he addressed you on your 
duties, still ring in my ears. How vivid, after a quar- 
ter of a century, the forms of these men ! how fresh 
and familiar their tones ! and yet not one of them 
survives this day to witness the answer of their 
prayers, and receive from me an account of my stew- 
ardship. Nor these alone, but other forms, rise up, 
and fill and crowd the mental vision. You your- 
selves, my early and long-tried parishioners and 
friends, then not uninterested spectators, were not as I 
now see you. Then the active men, who took a lead- 
ing part in the transactions of the day, you are now 
among the aged members of the society. I gaze 
again upon the fresh countenances of the children 
and youth, the hope of the congregation and of the 
young pastor: they have already taken their place, 
and become the pillars of the church. I stand once 
more in the midst of the venerable gray-haired men, 
who aided in the settlement of the first pastor, and 



5 



had come into the house of God to welcome the 
second : they are all gone, and a generation whom 
they did not know have come in their place. In 
imagination, I am once more surrounded by the 
troops of friends, young and old, who so kindly and 
cordially welcomed me to this field of untried and 
responsible duty. I again receive their greeting; I 
feel the grasp of their hand ; I hear their voice ; I see 
their smile of encouragement. But, alas ! these 
twenty-five years I have been with you, death hath 
laid a heavy hand upon them. I look again. The 
grave doth not restore its dead ; the dust lies undis- 
turbed upon their bosom ; there is no sound there but 
of the sighing wind as it passes by. 

Nor are the associations and recollections of the 
hour mine alone. They are yours also, my Christian 
brethren and friends ; for what has engrossed me 
through these long years has interested you. My 
thoughts have been suggested by your necessities ; my 
pleasures have been connected with your satisfac- 
tions ; my anxieties, with your perils and troubles. In 
the house of God, where we have so often met, and in 
your own homes, where your joys and sorrows have 
called us together, have been the events which have 
occupied me, and whose remembrance now presses 
upon the heart. These twenty-five years ! You also 
have a share in the associations which the mention of 
them awakens. For, during this period, how many of 



6 



the eventful scenes of life have we passed together! 
How many changes have come over us since first we 
met, — changes in age and person, in fortune and 
condition, in family and neighborhood, in purpose 
and prospect ! We have taken counsel together on 
affairs of town and parish ; we have obeyed the same 
sabbath-bell, and mingled our prayers together; we 
have stood together at the marriage-festival, and when 
we have offered our children in baptism ; we have sat 
together in the hour of religious joys, and broken and 
eaten of the bread of life ; we have watched in the 
same chamber of sickness, — witnessed together the 
last struggles of the dying, and followed our dead in 
company to the place of their rest. When, then, the 
images of faded joys and hopes crowd upon the me- 
mory, when the buried recollections of these long years 
start up afresh, shall I doubt that the review of the 
period will have interest for you as well as myself? 
Let me, then, to-day speak of it. Let me ask you to 
accompany me, as I shall go back through this long 
vista, and revive our half-forgotten impressions, and 
gather up and preserve the events which we have 
shared together. That I may present a distinct pic- 
ture, let me observe some order: I shall first dwell 
upon some of the circumstances which have rendered 
the ministry in this place one of difficulty and delicacy; 
then speak of the leading events which have taken 
place among us; and, finally, of our condition, pros- 



7 



pects, and duties. If I am able to complete the out- 
line with any degree of fulness, it is all which I shall 
undertake. 

Under the most favorable circumstances, the task of 
the young minister can never be easy. It cannot be 
other than a work of perpetual embarrassment and 
intense solicitude. Fresh from the schools, inexpe- 
rienced, unacquainted with human nature, pressed 
with occupations, called on to counsel by the bed of 
the sick and dying, and required to speak forenoon 
and afternoon of each returning sabbath to the great 
congregation on subjects of the highest moment, his 
path is hedged around with difficulties ; he treads a 
narrow way with precipices and pitfalls on either 
side. The lawyer and physician approach their duties 
only step by step, as skill and experience prepare 
them to discharge these duties ; and not until years 
have passed away, and many trials, successes, and 
failures have followed, are they entrusted with cases 
of delicacy and difficulty. But the minister, the very 
day of his settlement, may be called on to perform 
any service, the hardest and most responsible of his 
profession. My first two sermons were devoted to a 
consideration of your duties and mine, as minister 
and people, of whose magnitude and extent I could 
have only the faintest conception ; and my first fune- 
ral service was at the interment of a young man of 
my own age, a member of the University, the sorrow 



8 



for whose death, the prostration of many fond hopes, 
could be soothed only by the expression of the largest 
sympathy and the richest religious experience. 

But this was not all. The condition of the religious 
world, at the period of my settlement, added to the 
embarrassments and labors of the young minister. It 
was at the close of the controversy between the two 
great portions of the Congregational Churches of New 
England, when the great community, hitherto driven 
and tossed by conflicting opinions, were now arranging 
themselves as their temperaments, tastes, associations, 
and convictions should lead them. A system of exclu- 
sion and denunciation then existed, of which those of 
the present generation can know almost nothing. 
Friends, who had taken sweet counsel together, and 
walked to the house of God in company, parted by 
the way ; and ministers, who had freely interchanged 
the services of the pulpit, retired from each other's 
association, and went on alone. The religious elements 
of society were in a loose, unsettled state ; fears and 
suspicions had been infused into the heart of the com- 
munity ; and even opposition, having no clearly defined 
position, failed to inspire respect and win confidence. 
The liberal Christianity of those times, the growth of 
intelligence and freedom, the phasis of religion which 
the best minds in Christendom of every age have been 
led to adopt, was a manly protest against the narrow- 
ness and exclusiveness which would limit religious 



9 



inquiry, and proscribe honest opinions. Such a pro- 
test was then needed, and all honor to those who with 
faith and courage made it, and became the champions 
of freedom and Christian candor and an enlightened 
theology. They rescued the human intellect from the 
thraldom to which it was fast yielding, and gave an 
impulse to a rational Christianity which has been ac- 
knowledged far beyond the boundaries of New Eng- 
land, and invested all our institutions with a spirit of 
liberality which will be felt to the end of time. Never 
did a class of men undertake a work of reform from 
a purer motive, nor deserve more at the hands of 
those who should come after them, and enter into their 
labors. But the controversy, however beneficial in 
its final results, left a state of things which did not 
diminish, but added inconceivably to, the labors and 
anxieties of the young minister. There was no beaten 
track, no round of time-hallowed doctrines for him to 
follow; but there were new truths to be urged, newly 
aroused feelings to be guided, and tendencies to be 
guarded against, which would task all his powers. 
His position was like that of the civil fathers at the 
close of the Revolution. A spirit of liberty had been 
fostered, there were yearnings for a higher Christian 
life, and a deep-seated desire for a wider application 
of Christian truth ; but liberty unqualified degenerates 
into licentiousness, and the awakened sensibility into 
a vague idealism, unless controlled by realities, and di- 

• 2 



10 



rected into the channels of practical wisdom. It was 
a great thing then to meet the wants of the perplexed 
mind, and to prevent the soul, chilled by surrounding 
religious extravagance, from falling into religious in- 
difference ; and it required more than the wisdom of 
inexperienced youth to vindicate the truth, and guard 
against the extremes into which the reaction was 
hurrying a portion of the community. The trials of 
the religious character, through which the several 
churches of that day passed, have never been fully 
appreciated. 

These trials fell to the ministry of this congrega- 
tion in a limited measure. My venerable predecessor 
and colleague had already, from an early date of his 
ministry, taken his position. The Society was known 
as a Society of liberal Christians ; their opinions and 
habits were settled, and they were not to be moved 
by every wind of doctrine, or every gale of reli- 
gious excitement, how fiercely soever it might blow. 
Besides, there was little of the disposition in the mi- 
nistry of the town to embarrass and misrepresent and 
proselyte, seen in most other places. The Old South 
Church was, at the period of my settlement, vacant. 
The minister of the Central Church, prostrated by 
long-continued illness, was about to retire from his 
duties and from the town ; so that Dr. Going, of the 
First Baptist Church, was the only active pastor out 
of our own parish. He was earnest, efficient, and influ- 



11 



ential in his sphere, — labored in season and ont of 
season to carry ont his own ideal of truth and duty; 
but he was liberal and generous, and respected that 
freedom in others, which, like St. Paul, he would 
never yield to the importunities or threats of any, — 
no, not for an hour. He was a strong man, of strong 
convictions ; but he ever regarded the honest opinions 
of others, and left them freely to follow their own 
convictions of duty. What I found Dr. Going when I 
came here, I have generally found ministers and people 
who have been added since to our numbers, and have 
occupied the several places of worship in the town 
and city. Personally, I have been on terms of friendly 
intercourse with the various clergymen, and with 
members of the various congregations. With many, 
not of my own parish, I have enjoyed a social and 
Christian sympathy, which have endeared them to me. 
They have asked me to be with them in their sick- 
nesses, sorrows, and joys, so that I have come to 
think of myself rather as a minister of the city than 
of any particular portion of it. I can truly say, that, 
during all these long years, I have met with no want 
of courtesy; I have encountered no enmities; I 
have received no other than personal kindness and 
consideration. And yet I must add, that, during the 
early part of my ministry, such was the state of the 
public mind, such was the unsettled condition of our 
congregations, such their feverish anxiety, such their 



12 



watchful jealousy and want of mutual confidence, that 
the minister's labors and solicitudes were increased 
beyond expression. Though lightened by the steady 
composure, counsel, aid, and sympathy of the senior 
pastor, and the indulgence of the Society, they were 
years of unremitted toil. 

Another circumstance added to the labors of the 
ministry in this place. The principal growth of 
the city has been within this period of a quarter of a 
century. When I came here, yours was a beautiful 
inland village of four thousand inhabitants. I well 
remember, and you who are familiar with those days 
will remember with me, its attractions, as it lay em- 
bosomed in the midst of our valley, having as yet 
climbed no one of the adjacent hills. It rises on my 
imagination now, as I first saw it from one of your 
eastern eminences on an early autumn morning. I 
vividly recall the spectacle, once so enchanting to the 
eye of travellers, — its clusters of white tasteful houses, 
reposing among the trees as yet in the robes of sum- 
mer, and surrounded by the green fields and pastures 
where are now some of your busiest and most popu- 
lous streets. We might adopt almost the fond lan- 
guage of the Jewish historian, who, speaking of the 
nation's idol, the wondrous temple of Jerusalem, de- 
scribes it as resembling at a distance " a huge bank of 
snow " in the midst of a garden. About this period, 
the impulse began to be felt which has changed this 



13 

beautiful rural village into one of the largest and most 
thriving inland cities in the country. A growth so 
vigorous brought with it attendant perils and respon- 
sibilities ; and a work was to be done here not unlike 
theirs, who clear the forests and lay out the great 
cities of the West, survey the highways which their 
children and their children's children are to travel, 
plant upon their margin the shade-trees under which 
they are to repose, and place the foundations of those 
institutions of learning and religion, in which they 
are to rejoice from generation to generation. Here, 
the cause of education, good morals, religion, and 
humanity was to be looked to, — a great work was 
to be done ; and the burthen of this work fell upon 
the clergymen, who became the occupants of the four 
pulpits of the town. They took a leading part in the 
formation of the Lyceum and other associations, which 
have had such an influence upon our destinies. They 
have been behind no others in the care of the public 
schools, and in suggesting and carrying out those mea- 
sures of reform through which they have reached their 
present condition of excellence, and become second 
to none in the Commonwealth. Let me, however, be 
just. The great impulse was given to our schools, and 
the system out of which the present one has grown was 
established as early as 1823; and never should the meed 
of praise be withheld from those devoted men : ever- 
lasting honor be paid them, who, at a period of great 



14 



depression and comparative neglect, conceived and 
established a plan which has proved so wise and effi- 
cient. But, to carry out and perfect this plan, to adapt 
it to the wants of a rapidly increasing population, — 
to adopt and incorporate into it the improvements of 
the day, so as to secure the best education of all, and 
do injustice to none, — required an amount of attention 
and labor which can be appreciated only by those who 
are familiar with such subjects. From the first, I 
enjoyed the great privilege of sharing in the direction 
of public education among us. Year after year I 
have been permitted to occupy a seat on the Board of 
the School Committee, both of the town and district : 
and, in more than one instance, have grren to this 
cause alone the best portions of sixty days in a single 
year. I mention this, not to boast of the honor or to 
complain of the toil, but as an historical fact to be 
taken into the account, when we would comprehend 
the labors of a young clergyman in this place. 

There is another consideration to be added. When 
I came here, there was no Society in the interior of New 
England comparable with this in weight of character 
and influence. The intellectual energy and Chris- 
tian fidelity of my venerable predecessor had drawn 
around him an amount of intelligence and refinement 
not to be found out of our great cities. When, there- 
fore, with such kind consideration you extended to 
me an unanimous invitation to become the asso- 



15 



ciate of your venerated pastor, while I could not be in- 
different to the distinction and the privilege, I could not 
be unconscious of the weight of responsibility which 
the acceptance of your invitation would bring. Young 
in years and younger in experience, having preached 
only a few sabbaths, I cannot forget with what over- 
powering solicitude I entered upon the duties of my 
office*. I knew what you had a right to expect, and I 
knew how poorly qualified any young man could be 
to meet that expectation. The standard of preaching 
was never higher than at that period. The almost 
inspired discourses of Buckminster, and the chaste 
and judicious sermons of Freeman and Thatcher, were 
on the shelves of your libraries. Channing was in 
your neighboring metropolis at the height of his repu- 
tation, pouring out a tide of rich thought far beyond 
the circle of his immediate hearers. You had been 
moved by the calm beauty and irresistible pathos of 
Greenwood. You had seen the apostolic simplicity 
and had felt the still, searching power of Ware. You 
had been nurtured by the grave wisdom which had so 
long adorned your own pulpit. Familiar with such 
models, I knew that here you would not tolerate indo- 
lence, nor be edified by common-place dulness. Com- 
prising as you did so large a portion of the professional 
families of the town, I knew that the pulpit-services 
could not be sustained without careful preparation 
and untiring devotion ; I knew what you had a right 



16 



to expect; but, feeble in health and fresh from the 
schools, I knew how little I had as yet to give. But 
I did not know how kindly you would accept the 
well-meant endeavor, nor how long and patiently you 
would bear with me. This I resolved on, that, as 
here my lot was cast, here, in all singleness and sin- 
cerity, I would consecrate my best energies to the 
duties of my profession. It became my ambition then, 
as it has been my aim since, to be an useful, improv- 
ing, effective minister. I wished to do whatever good 
I might here, to become associated with this spot and 
identified with every great interest, every plan of im- 
provement, with the social and religious life of this 
place; and from this object I resolved never to be 
diverted by any other ambition, by a desire for the 
reputation of profound scholarship or of elegant ac- 
complishments, or to be widely known as the lecturer 
at Lyceums, or on some of the philanthropic topics of 
the day. I resolved not to be diverted from the espe- 
cial work given me here to do, but to apply foremost 
and chiefly to its great and pressing duties, and to 
throw the whole weight of personal effort, character, 
and influence into the discharge of them. The plain- 
est pulpit I ever deemed a throne of power, and the 
pastoral walks far above the common walks of life. 
"With this feeling I began, and with this feeling, con- 
firmed by the experience of a quarter of a century, I 
continue to this day ; and, if the strength of the con vie- 



17 



tion could be shown by the quantity of work done in 
these ways, I could state how many hundreds of ser- 
mons I have preached, and how many thousands of 
pastoral visits I have made. But I would rather say, 
resolving at the first to regard this as my home, I have 
given it the fresh and full affections which usually 
cluster around our earliest and latest home. Every 
object and every interest have become endeared by the 
association. It is the spot of my first love ; and these 
beautiful hills seem to smile in friendly recognition, 
and these brooks to murmur the more sweetly, be- 
cause I have heard them so long. Every old place 
has a history for the heart, and every new scene is 
regarded with affection, because it has grown up 
under my own eye. Each family seems bound to me 
by some peculiar tie ; and the face of each child is 
dear, and I love to call it by name. Indeed, so exclu- 
sively did I regard my work here, so long and so 
intimately have we been associated, so closely have 
we been connected in my thought, that, for the well- 
being of each individual in the Society, — for the 
good name of the city and for the welfare of her 
children, however assuming it may be, I cannot alto- 
gether resist the feeling of personal responsibility. I 
have stood in my place among you so many years, 
and you have so grown up around me, — how can 
I fail to be reproved as the unwise and unfaithful 
steward, when you fall short in duty, or when our 
3 



18 



favored city is false to her early promise, and holds 
back in the path of social and spiritual improve- 
ment'? 

I have dwelt upon some of the circumstances which 
have rendered the ministry in this place one of dif- 
ficulty, delicacy, and responsibility. I come now to 
the leading events. I travel over again the way we 
have gone together. In doing this, I must confess that 
there is one thought that oppresses me. I have a 
feeling, that these events, scattered over the long pas- 
sage of years, of which I am to speak, occurred but 
yesterday, and are familiar to yourselves as to me ; so 
brief are the years when they are gone. But when I 
remember that I was preaching here before half of 
this congregation were born, and that many of you 
have come to dwell among us, strangers to our parish 
annals, — when I remember, above all, that of the one 
hundred and seventy heads of families whose names 
were on our register, thirty only are found with us 
this day, I am relieved of the apprehension that I am 
repeating an over-familiar tale. I am to recall events 
with which most of you have had as little personal 
acquaintance as with those before the flood. 

This Society then, whose legal title is " The Second 
Parish in Worcester," was formed in March, .1785. 
It had existed just forty- two years when I was or- 
dained. I have accordingly been with you more than 
one-third of the whole period of its existence. It 



19 



seemed to me a very old Society then; but it seems no 
longer so now. I was ordained, as I have said, in the 
first meeting-house of the parish, now the school-house, 
on Summer-street, and continued to preach there for 
nearly two years and a half. This edifice, endeared 
to the first generation by the associations of earlier 
days, and the memory of conflicts borne and victories 
achieved, could never be equally dear to the next. 
Soon after my settlement, the town, and with the 
town the parish, began to grow ; and, in consequence 
of the inconvenient location of the old church, and 
the difficulty of procuring eligible pews, the necessity 
of building a larger one in a more central position 
began to be generally admitted; and, in the course 
of a few months, a site was procured, plans were se- 
lected, the corner-stone was laid, and, Aug. 20, 1829, 
the church was dedicated to Almighty God. The 
building of the new edifice was an important event in 
the history of the Society. It was more commodious, 
it occupied a more central and eligible spot, than the 
old one; and, little as it contained of architectural 
beauty, the aged men who were with us did not weep 
when they remembered the glory of the former house. 
With unmingled satisfaction we went up in company 
with friends earlier and later, with the dead and the 
living, to worship there. Year after year it stood, and 
afforded a refuge from the winter storm, and a shelter 
from the summer heat. We went in and came out ; 



20 



we found it a pleasant religious home for ourselves 
and our children ; it was associated with our deepest 
religious experience, and we learned to love even its 
deformities. 

Thus the seasons passed over us. Every season 
brought with it additions to our numbers, and we be- 
came a large, hopeful, and flourishing parish. Pur- 
suing the order of time, the next event to be noticed 
is the introduction of an organ into the church. This 
was Oct. 23, 1836. A small discordant instrument had 
been used in the old meetinghouse, but had never been 
introduced into the new one. At the time to which I 
refer, there were none in the city, where now there are 
eight every Sunday employed in the efficient aid of 
public worship. There are those who will readily 
recall the satisfaction with which they listened to the 
solemn, soothing, and inspiring tones of our own, as 
they first fell upon our ears and echoed along the 
ceiling. I here quote the closing reflections which 
were made from the pulpit on the day of its introduc- 
tion : " It is a delightful reflection, that so are the 
generations of men linked, and so do the works outlive 
the lives of men, that one enters upon the labors of 
another. If God shall spare this house, and the in- 
strument of worship which we have brought to it this 
day, our children and our children's children shall 
share in the benefits. And does it not give dignity 
and importance to our efforts, to remember that when 



21 



we shall have left these accommodations, they will arise 
to find in them a refuge from the heat and a shelter 
from the storm ; and when the lips that now open in 
praise shall be silent, when that organ shall have 
sent forth its last dirge over all who aided in and wit- 
nessed its erection, there will it remain to assist in the 
devotions of other generations, inspire their worship, 
and animate their song?" 

There is another event which I must record. After 
the introduction of the organ, I find a new impulse was 
given to the parish. The pews in the house were all 
occupied, the congregation was large, and a deeper 
religious spirit seemed awakened; numbers, greater 
than usual, were added to the church; and ample tes- 
timony is borne to the thoughtful kindness and Chris- 
tian courtesy of its members, in a very beautiful and 
affectionate note of acknowledgment from the hand of 
the Senior Pastor, recorded in the Church Register. We 
stood in the tower of our strength, and no spot was 
on the sun of our prosperity. But a temporary cloud 
was gathering. The health of the Junior Pastor be- 
gan to give way in midsummer : he was released from 
his labors, and returned from a journey of a few weeks 
no better. At the coming on of winter, he was charged 
by his physician to relinquish his home and his pul- 
pit for a season, and seek the healing breezes of a 
tropical climate. And can he ever forget the prompt 
sympathy which you expressed, the unvarying kind- 



22 



ness which reached him far awav, and the warm 
welcome which greeted his return % Painful as was 
the interruption, it was clearly ordered for good. A 
season of self-inspection was afforded him ; he could 
look at his duties from a distance ; a new field of 
reality was opened to his observation, and a new field 
of exercise for his imagination and memory. It 
was a crisis, — a turning point in his constitution ; 
and at the end of a few months he w r as restored to his 
home and his duties with improved health, w 7 ith a 
richer experience, and with a larger capacity to serve 
Him whose mysterious way he had followed, and to 
be useful to them with whom his lot in life is linked. 
And so we learn, — 

" The clouds we so much dread 
Are big with mercy, and shall break 
With blessings on our head." 

In the summer of 1838, I resumed the services of 
the pulpit, — at first feebly ; but each month was 
attended with new vigor, and the changing seasons 
brought the delightful assurance that a final cure had 
been effected. Once more in a home which was ren- 
dered doubly dear by our temporary absence, and the 
cordial kindness which welcomed our return, I entered 
with a new sense of enjoyment into the duties of my 
calling, and earnestly hoped to accomplish a greater 
work than ever. But an event was hastening which 
was to change materially our mutual relations. The 



23 



Senior Pastor of this Church had long lain ill : the 
snows and frosts of winter lingered late ; and the 
chills of age had come on him, which no reviving 
breath of spring could dispel; and the worn frame was 
sinking away, which no warmth of summer could 
re-animate. Aug. 19, 1839, the event occurred which 
we all knew could not be much longer delayed : the 
light which shone so benignantly upon us was extin- 
guished ; the countenance that carried a benediction 
was changed; the trembling form that we loved to 
gaze upon disappeared from among us ; the leading 
mind which animated it passed on before : my venera- 
ble associate, Rev. Dr. Bancroft, died. 

" He went to his God ; he went to his home, 
No more amid peril and error to roam. 
His eyes were no longer dim, 
His feet no more did falter, 
No grief could follow him, 
No pang his cheek could alter." 

We come to a new era in our history. I was 
now left sole Pastor of this Church. The responsibi- 
lities hitherto shared now rested upon one, and I felt 
as if I were beginning my ministry anew. For, 
although Dr. Bancroft preached but occasionally, and 
still more rarely performed any pastoral duty, yet was 
there a sense of protection in his presence, and a con- 
sciousness of safety in his counsels. When he was 
removed, we felt that a great cause was entrusted to 
our hands, and a common work, which, God helping 



24 



us, we must faithfully perform. But, for the perform- 
ance of this work, he had not left us wholly un- 
prepared. His own clear, comprehensive thought, 
his fearless independence, his unwavering fidelity 
to principle, his cheerful faith in an over-ruling 
Providence and the world to come; above all, his 
dying declarations of confidence, comfort, and solace 
in the truths which he had defended, were a legacy 
ever to be treasured, and stamped a character upon 
the Society never to be changed. Though unknown 
to many of you, his influence is yet seen in whatever 
calm reliance on great principles, respect for individual 
rights, love of peace, and ready sacrifice of individual 
preferences for the common good, may be witnessed 
among us. Years have passed ; but most cordially do 
I adopt a sentiment inscribed on the records of your 
Church while he was living, "that he still watches 
over, guides, and instructs us, with the tenderness of 
a father and the solicitude of a Christian minister." 

Hitherto you had gone along, a large, prosperous, and 
harmonious congregation, known for the liberality of 
your views and your love of peace. A time was coming 
which would test the sincerity of your professions and 
the strength of your principles. At various periods, the 
project had been discussed of forming a new Society by 
secessions from the old. Various reasons operated to 
advance the project. The prevailing one, I have no 
doubt, was a sincere conviction that such a step was 



25 



needed, and that the cause of liberal Christianity and 
enlightened devotion would thereby be promoted. The 
first separate meeting was held in February, 1845. It 
was a great event in the annals of our congregation. 
It was the sundering of ties which had been long 
continued and most intimate. They who had been 
reared in the bosom of the same Church, who had 
so long obeyed the same sabbath-bell, and mingled 
their devotions at the same altar, were henceforth to 
turn their faces asunder and worship apart. I know 
what the act must have cost many of you, — what 
rending of old associations, and what solicitudes for 
the uncertain future. And yet can I cease to admire 
the cheerfulness with which you coincided in a mea- 
sure whose issues no one could foresee, but which, on 
the whole, seemed for good, and the hearty sympathy 
and co-operation with which you sought to bring it to 
a favorable conclusion ] The measure proved a good 
one; the experiment was successful; and here was 
another Society, of one faith with ourselves, — a 
younger sister, — rearing her own altar, gathering 
together members of her own family, receiving your 
benedictions and heartiest good wishes. In a sermon 
preached the Sunday after the formation of the So- 
ciety, in giving utterance to my own views and feel- 
ings, I am sure I also expressed yours. Looking back 
from this period of time, I have no occasion to alter 
a word. I said, " I foresaw from the beginning, that 

4 



26 



this enterprise could not succeed without some sacri- 
fice on the part of us all. But, if a great good is to 
be accomplished, that sacrifice we should willingly 
make ; and, if we possess the spirit of our Divine 
Master, we shall make it without one murmur of com- 
plaint or one sigh of discontent. I foresaw that it 
would remove from our immediate communion some 
valued friends. Welcome faces we shall miss as we 
assemble to meditate and pray, and familiar greetings 
as we walk to the house of God in company, and the 
expressions of sympathy that added to our sabbath 
joys. But the strongest bonds that have united us 
will yet remain. Though standing at different altars, 
we have one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one Father 
of all. Though separated, and in different enclosures, 
we shall be together, constituting the same community 
of believers, touched by kindred affections, and de- 
voted to the accomplishment of the same glorious 
objects. You stand apart, you form new associations 
in another place and around another preacher ; but, 
let me assure you, to me you will ever be what you 
have been. These ties, which have been winding and 
welded around the heart by these eighteen years' in- 
tercourse, are not thus to be severed or loosened. I 
shall feel undiminished interest in your welfare. 
I shall claim my accustomed place at your firesides, 
and endeavor to win the regards of your children. I 
shall rejoice in your joy, and beg the privilege of a 



27 



spiritual friend in your sorrows. And last, not least, 
I will sympathize in this your undertaking; and, 
when you have obtained a new home for your reli- 
gious affections, I will rejoice in every beam of suc- 
cess, every smile of prosperity that shall visit you. 
Most of all will I rejoice in the growing zeal and 
energy, in the higher life, and wider affections, and 
deeper peace, which you may obtain under new 
and more quickening influences. If this enterprise 
be of God, it will succeed ; His blessing will crown 
it. To Him and to his grace we commend it." 

A new Society was formed, a new house of worship 
erected, a new pastor settled; and we felt that we 
were not weakened, but that new strength was given 
to a cause dear to our hearts. A new laborer was in- 
troduced into one common field, new accommodations 
were made to supply the rapidly increasing wants of 
the city; a spirit of harmony existed between the two 
Societies unbroken ; we had discharged a great duty, 
and we were at peace. But a new trial awaited us. 
On the evening of August 24, 1849, you were called 
from your homes to witness the entire destruction of 
your house by fire. However you may regard it now, 
you saw it then with other feelings than those of in- 
difference. There were associations connected with 
that house which forbade that you should be un- 
moved. The vicissitudes of twenty years, since we 
had first entered it for worship, had endeared it to 



28 



your hearts. Every part had become the record of a 
history. The very doors had opened invitingly to 
you, the very walls were written over with precious 
memories. The vane that swung above the dome, 
how often had it discoursed to you of the aspects of 
the skies, perhaps of the world beyond ! the dial-plate 
upon the tower, how often had it measured out to you 
the hours of business and of pleasure ! and the bell, 
how often had it broken the silence of the night, and 
reminded you of the passage of time ! how often had 
you heard and obeyed its call on still sabbath morn- 
ings ! and when it tolled once more, as it went down 
upon the pavement in fragments, as I reminded you 
when we first met again, it seemed a fitting knell over 
pains and pleasures long gone by. There was the 
record of your religious experience, — of the doubts, 
hopes, fears, and passionate desires of childhood and 
youth; of the inward strugglings, the calm resolves, the 
settled faith, the peace passing understanding, of ma- 
turer years. And there were the memories of God's 
varied discipline, the memories of the loved and lost 
with whom you had walked by the way, and by whose 
side you had sat in the sanctuary, — kindred near and 
distant, friends earlier and later. 

You looked upon the charred and blackened ruins 
of your familiar temple, but with no word of com- 
plaint, and no tone of despondency. It was an occa- 
sion rather of gratitude for the expressions of kindness 



29 



and sympathy which it called forth, and for the ener- 
gy and devotion which it revealed in yourselves. The 
Church of the Unity and the First Baptist Church, 
with prompt courtesy, made us the proffer of their 
house at such hours as should be most convenient for 
ourselves. But, while we were grateful, we preferred 
to spare our friends the inconvenience to which our 
acceptance of their kindness would have subjected 
them. We sought an unaccustomed place of worship. 
But I need not go on longer with the history. The 
events are too recent, and they are too fresh in your re- 
collection, to require a remembrance here and now. A 
trial of your faith and affection, a test of your attach- 
ment to this ancient Society, was made ; and you may 
forget with what cheerfulness and fidelity and de- 
votion you sustained it all, and passed in safety the 
wilderness which now lay before you ; but I can 
never cease to remember the ready acquiescence with 
which you submitted to the loss of your place of 
worship, the energy and good hope with which 
you set about the building anew of your broken 
walls, the patience and perseverance with which you 
encountered many and great discomforts, the unani- 
mity with which all your plans for the erection of a 
new house were laid, and the unbroken fellowship 
and affection with which they were brought to a suc- 
cessful conclusion. You may forget those lingering, 
tedious months, the most trying in our annals ; but I 



can never cease to remember, and thank God for 
them as among our best and happiest, — for they 
proved your constancy, and inspired a confidence and 
imparted a satisfaction which never could have been 
enjoyed through long years of prosperity. You 
may forget — no, you can never cease to remember, 
with heartfelt gratitude to the Giver of all Good, who 
had guided you through all your perils and wander- 
ings — the emotions of pleasure, the religious joy, with 
which one year ago you for the first time seated your- 
selves within this beautiful edifice, and felt that you 
once more had a religious sanctuary, an altar of 
refuge, a sabbath home. Long may it stand, the 
monument of your liberality and of your Christian 
attachments ; and, when you go out of it to enter it no 
more, may your successors in long procession, the ad- 
vancing generations, find it the house of God and the 
gate of heaven ! 

I have now mentioned the leading events of our 
history. I have now followed step by step the way 
we have gone over together. But there are other 
things to be noticed, which have occupied much of my 
thought and some of yours, and should not be passed 
by in silence. Among these, I first mention our 
Sabbath School. When I came here, and for nearly 
two years after my ordination, there was no organiza- 
tion for the instruction of the children. Whatever 
religious education they then received was principally 



obtained at home, with an occasional examination 
perhaps once or twice in the year, conducted in public 
by the Pastor. Sabbath-schools were then a novelty, 
regarded with some degree of jealousy, and had not as 
yet superseded the old ways of catechizing practised 
in most of our congregations. But, about the time 
we entered the second church, ours was formed ; with 
some hesitancy at first, but continued with increasing 
confidence as we went on. Whatever misgivings 
some might have had in the beginning, they readily 
yielded to what was regarded as a general impression 
of its utility. I know you now look upon it with 
affection, and will not cease to foster it as a school of 
religious wisdom, and the hope of the Church. I 
have always endeavored to maintain a personal con- 
nection with it, and here desire to express my heart- 
felt obligation to the large body of superintendents 
and teachers who have season after season been con- 
nected with it, — some of them from the moment of 
its formation. The number of pupils who have been 
members of it, and who have gone from it during 
these twenty-five years, we do not know. The school 
has now connected with it, including teachers, pupils, 
and Bible-class, are more than two hundred. And I 
may state as a fact, showing your interest in the 
training of your children, that there have been sent 
from it, and from the bosom of this Church, since my 
connection with you, to complete their education in 



32 



some of our principal New England Colleges, the large 
number of twenty-five young men. Sixteen have gra- 
duated ; two have been removed by friends, two by 
death ; and six are now members of our neighboring 
University. And, to show you that the Sunday-school 
has not been without its influence, I may add, that 
four at least of these have become useful and effective 
ministers, some of them already eminent in their pro- 
fession. May the day be distant when its influence 
shall be less ! 

I mention, as another means of good, the very ex- 
cellent Parish Library, for the use of all the habitual 
attendants on our worship. With the exception of 
the clock, which measures out our time ; and the ta- 
blets, which keep before the eyes of the congregation 
God's great commandments and Christ's inimitable 
prayer, — the gift of a living member of the Society, 
whose presence forbids a more explicit acknowledg- 
ment ; and of a chandelier, the legacy of the late Mr. 
Maccarty, involved in the ruin of our former house, — 
this Library, and a valuable portion of our commu- 
nion-plate, deserve to be noticed as the only bequest 
which this Society has received since my connection 
with it. They were the dying gift of one to whom its 
prosperity was very dear, and who, through the books 
which he enables us to purchase, though dead, speaks 
to us from generation to generation. I refer to the 
late Edward D. Bangs, for many years Secretary of 



33 



the Commonwealth, the founder of the Bangs Library. 
I take particular pleasure in noticing such acts of 
liberality, because, while they were so frequent in our 
churches once, they have become among us so rare 
now. God forbid that any should be so unwise as to 
endow us with a fund sufficiently large to take away 
the necessity of individual effort ! Such a fund has, in 
more instances than one, proved all but fatal to the 
prosperity of a Society. But can any thing be more 
natural and becoming in those who are blest with the 
means, than to testify their sense of obligation by 
tokens of remembrance to the Church, in the bosom 
of which they were educated] It is an enduring 
expression of sympathy, and makes certain a remem- 
brance when and where we would love most to be 
remembered, — in the place and the hallowed hour 
of prayer. The more these memorials we can multi- 
ply, the more we insure the sacredness and perma- 
nency of our religious institutions. 

I mention, as other helpers in the great work to be 
done in a religious Society, the various associations 
which have been formed from time to time for benevo- 
lent, social, and religious purposes. Among them all 
I know of none which has been more useful than that 
which has been so actively maintained by the females 
of the congregation. By their monthly meetings, by 
their combined labors in behalf of others, by their 
mutual acquaintance and interest in each other and 
5 



34 



in common objects, they do much, let me assure them, 
to relieve the loneliness of strangers who have come 
to reside among us, and cement the members of the 
Society together. It is good for us to meet oftener 
and to know each other better than we do ; and, when 
you shall have provided a suitable place where I 
can approach you more nearly and address you more 
familiarly than I can from this pulpit, I have not a 
shadow of doubt that new life and strength will be 
given to the congregation. 

But, as an expression of religious sympathy and an 
aid to religious improvement, we must rely more than 
we do, more than any of our congregations have done, 
on the ordinances which Christ appointed. Alas for 
us, when they shall sink into neglect ! What would 
our homes be but for the associations and memories 
connected with them ] — the tokens of affection in 
childhood, and the expressions of endearment in ma- 
turer years'? With these, the Swiss will love his 
bleak barren mountains, the Laplander will love 
his fields and his hills of ice, better than all the plains 
and gardens of the fertile South. So religion has its 
memories, its emblems and tokens of affection, and, 
through these, becomes dearer to the heart than it 
could by any amount of mere intellectual manifestation. 
It is more through the influence of these ordinances 
than any excellence of preaching, our religious So- 
cieties are strengthened and perpetuated. For, let our 



35 

0 churches be divested of their Christian associations, 
let the minister become the mere lecturer, and he may- 
write like Burke, he may speak like Tully ; but, let 
me tell him, he cannot keep his congregation together 
a single year. The feeblest servant of Christ that 
kneels in simple devotion at the altar, and with a ten- 
der thoughtfulness breaks the consecrated bread, is 
more efficient than he. I am glad, therefore, to find 
that you do not fancy that you have outgrown what 
Christ reverenced; that there is a degree of respect 
for the time-hallowed ordinances of his religion. 
Since I have been with you, I have administered two 
hundred and eighty-four baptisms, and I have ad- 
mitted nearly two hundred persons — sixteen during 
the last year — to the Church. And yet why should 
there be so few ] The rite of remembrance — most 
beautiful, expressive, and touching it is ; and tender 
associations are connected with it. In the Protestant 
Churches of Europe there are none of the feelings of 
awe and strangeness which are connected with it 
here. The young, after a careful preparation in the 
Sunday-school and under the eye of the pastor, pass 
to the fellowship and watch of the Church as the 
usual thing; and their first communion is not an 
occasion of awful dread, but a festival of rejoicing, 
to which the kind wishes and tender assiduities of 
friends are invited, participated in with glad hope, 
and remembered with pleasure. When will we learn, 



36 



that a tender reverence for a great and pure being, — 
the consecration of the heart and life to one great 
and noble object, — will do more than all else to 
guard the avenues of temptation, to quicken the slug- 
gish affections, to prop the inward principle, and 
conduct to the very heights of manly virtue, dignity, 
and enjoyment. 

There are other religious services than those that 
I have named which we have shared together. We 
have been invited to sit on sixty councils; called 
to assist in the ordination of clergymen in this and 
neighboring States ; and have been present by the pas- 
tor and a delegate, and taken a part in most of them. 
I have united four hundred and twenty-eight persons 
in marriage, and have often passed from the marriage 
festival to the funeral solemnity, and so again from 
the funeral solemnity to the marriage festival, within 
the hour. On one side of the street I have joined 
in the joyous festivities of your children, and then 
crossed over to attend in the chamber of your 
dying; I have gone from the room of the sick, 
where the dim night-taper was burning, to the bril- 
liantly lighted hall, where the youthful and healthful 
were gathered. So varied, and made up of such con- 
trasts, is the life of the clergyman ; and yet, if that 
life is real and earnest, each scene has its lessons and 
its memory for the heart. 

I said in the beginning, that, of the one hun- 



37 



dred and seventy names written when I came here in 
your parish-books, among the two hundred and fifty 
now registered, I find only thirty; and, if we add 
those on the list of our sister Society, only thirty- 
eight. I did not think there were so few, nor did I 
realize that you had so changed. How many have 
come and gone ! — once fellow-worshippers here, now 
apart in every clime, on every continent and island of 
the sea. I have made some inquiry. I perceive they 
are found in England, France, Italy, and Holland ; in 
China and Central America ; in the East and West 
Indies, and islands of the Pacific ; and I believe there 
is not a State or principal city of the Union which 
has not a representative from our religious Society, 
bearing the character which he here formed, — the 
impress of our fidelity or neglect, — himself the cen- 
tre of other circles, scattering the seeds of the good 
or evil which we here planted in his bosom. It is 
this consideration which adds unspeakable value to 
our religious associations, and imparts unutterable 
solemnity to the work which we have to do. Strike 
upon the ocean, our philosophy teaches, and the im- 
pulse, wave succeeding wave, reaches to the most dis- 
tant shores. Who shall measure the duration or 
extent of a pure thought, or a right principle, or a 
virtuous impulse, which we may communicate to any 
one soul, enclosed on any one sabbath within these 
walls ? 



38 



But there are other causes for the changes in 
this Society than that which I have mentioned. Dur- 
ing these twenty-five years, I have attended four 
hundred and twenty-nine funerals. A company has 
gone out from us, which, if it could be gathered here 
to-day, would amaze you by its magnitude. The 
small and the great would be here, — the infant of a 
day, young men and maidens, the middle-aged, and 
they who were bending under the burthens of nearly 
a century of years. But I come to the house of God • 
I look for them, — the kind friends who welcomed me 
here twenty-five years ago, and those other friends 
who, in different stages of our journey, joined their 
company; and, except a remnant, they are not here. 
I go along the streets which they familiarly trod ; I 
pause at the doors which they used to throw so in- 
vitingly open; I enter the dwellings which they 
adorned with kindness and generous hospitality, and 
they are not there. I go to your beautiful cemetery, 
where, fourteen years ago, we saw the first sleeper 
borne and laid in the virgin soil. I stood there the 
other day, — the calmest and serenest, the very bridal 
of the month. The bosom of the earth was disrobed 
of its wintry covering, the air teemed with friendly sug- 
gestions, and the winds blew softly as if from angels' 
wings through the naked branches of the trees ; and, 
as I gazed on the little mounds and the white monu- 
ments around, how could I fail to be profoundly 



39 



affected'? The years rolled back, and I seemed once 
more to be in the midst of familiar friends, to gaze 
on faces again that we loved, and to hear tones that 
made our bosoms thrill with joy. 

" The forms of the departed, 
The beloved and true-hearted, 
Came to visit me once more." 

They are your dead, your friends and mine, earlier 
and later, removed from us during the long passage 
of years ; but, in our better moments, when the soul 
breaks away from the thraldom of the senses and 
communes with the distant and the unseen, living 
again in our hearts as tender and loving and more 
dear than ever. 

I have spoken of the changes which have been 
wrought in the congregation. The floods of time 
have swept over ; and old things, old faces, old friend- 
ships, have passed away. But still more striking 
has been the change in the ministry ; it would seem 
as if all things here had become new. I ask for my 
contemporaries, and the answer comes back that I am 
more than eleven years the senior clergyman of this 
city ; the pastors of our older churches have come 
and gone again and again, while I have stood in my 
lot. I look around on our large and populous 
county, and again I am reminded of the revolutions 
of a quarter of a century. Of the one hundred and 
seventy-seven ministers of all denominations who oc- 



40 

cupy its various pulpits, I can call to mind only seven 
who have remained pastors of the same churches, and 
only four who retain the sole charge of their flock. I 
may almost take upon my lips the language of my 
venerable colleague in his half-century sermon, to 
which we listened thirteen years ago, so affecting in 
the utterance, " I am now the oldest clergyman in the 
county. I have outlived my generation, and in the 
midst of society may be considered as a solitary man." 

These twenty-five years — they have passed swiftly 
and smoothly away. We have reached a principal 
stage of our journey ; and now, as I look back upon 
the road we have travelled together, while the feeble- 
ness of my endeavors and the imperfection of my 
services cannot fail to inspire unaffected humility, yet 
does the retrospect bring with it cheerful and pleasant 
memories. It reminds me of labors willingly borne, 
because so abundantly rewarded ; of sorrows lightly 
falling, because sustained by your sympathy ; of 
friendships unbroken, and a cordial intercourse from 
the beginning, chilled by no seasons of coldness, inter- 
rupted by no moment of alienation to the present 
hour. No man could be more blessed in the pastoral 
relation, and a long one, — no small fragment of a 
long life, have we passed together. For your kind- 
nesses, friends and parishioners, so early begun, so 
long continued, and so variously manifested to me and 
mine, let me pour out my heart's gratitude. My right 



41 



hand will have forgot its cunning, my dotage will 
have come, my death will be near, when I cease to 
remember them. 

These twenty-five years of mingled life that we 
have passed together, they are gone, — the morning 
and the midnoon of our brief summer's day ; and what 
permanent memorial have they left behind ] What is 
the response in our own bosoms'? What hath the 
recording angel borne up, and written in the book of 
life? What have these years, now numbered and 
gone, done for us] and what have we done for the 
cause of Christ and humanity % Something, I know ; 
else why have we stood here so long, and not had our 
vineyard taken from us, and given to more faithful 
husbandmen] Something, I know, these years have 
done for us ; for they have told us how insecure are 
our best privileges, and how the objects most familiar 
and dear hasten away, and the vision of life vanishes 
even while we gaze ; and something, I trust, we have 
done for the cause of truth and goodness, to build up 
in our hearts and in the midst of us the kingdom of 
God. But, brethren, when in an hour like this we 
stand at the close of a quarter of a century ; when the 
voices of the past speak to us of the fleetness and 
solemnity of our time ; when the memory of opportu- 
nities neglected and seasons misimproved revives, and 
the faces of the great company who once sat with us, 
sharers of our devotions, but now gone to their 
6 



42 



account, bearing the stamp of our fidelity or neglect, 
seem looking clown upon us, the words of mere con- 
gratulation die upon the lips ; we are checked in 
the indulgence of self-satisfaction ; the little we have 
done passes from our recollection, and we feel it to be 
a moment for serious self-inspection, earnest prayer, 
and solemn resolutions. Seeing, then, that the months 
and the years hurry by,, let us not now pause, but 
hasten in our work ; and, what our hands find to do, 
do with our might. Knowing that the day of our 
deliverance and recompense is nearer than it was, let 
us pledge ourselves to renewed fidelity, and go on 
with cheerfulness and good hope our appointed path. 
The welfare of this ancient and honored Society, the 
cause of God and man, of truth and humanity in this 
place, is committed to our keeping. Instructed by the 
experience of these twenty-five years, let us arise and 
put on the beautiful garments, and witness a good 
confession, and show, by our untiring activity and 
disinterested love, that we know the truth and feel its 
power. Let us go on with unfaltering faith and de- 
votion, struggling ever and striving upward, until the 
shadows of our night shall descend and our labors 
shall be over. And then, having sung our evening 
hymn of praise, may we go to our rest, — enter that 
world where there is no beginning of days or end of 
years ; where we may join that assembly which no 
man can number, the small and the great, the saints 



43 



of all ages, the good of all climes, — the excellent 
of whom we have heard, and the meek and trusting 
whom we have loved, — from whom we shall be 
parted no more for ever. The Lord bless and cause 
the light of his countenance to shine upon you ! His 
presence ever be a wall of fire round about you, and a 
glory in the midst of you ! 



NOTES. 



Note, p. 21. 

The history of the Hymn-books used by the congregation is not a 
long one, and may as well here be written. It would seem, that, 
when the Society was formed, those who seceded from the First 
Church brought with them the Hymn-book from which they had 
been accustomed to sing. This was the New Version of the Psalms 
of David by Tate and Brady, then in common use in the New 
England churches. This continued in the congregation until 1796, 
when the more varied and complete collection of Belknap was 
adopted. This was a decided advance on the former, and obtained 
a pretty general adoption in the more liberal churches. It main- 
tained its place in our own for about thirty years. But in 1825 
it yielded to another, a more modern and a far superior compila- 
tion. This was the collection of Psalms and Hymns prepared by 
Edmund Q,. Sewall of New York. It was an excellent work in 
its day, compiled with judgment and taste, but deficient in hymns 
expressive of a deeper religious experience. The present collec- 
tion, selected by members of the Cheshire Association, was intro- 
duced May 9, 1847. A faithful history of New England Hymn- 
books, from Ainsworth's and the New England Version down 
through their successive generations to the last published, would 
be very rich and instructive. 

Note, p. 32. 

If I were to designate a single object which deserves the atten- 
tion of those who wish to do something for the permanent good 
of our parishes, it would be the making of some provision for the 



46 



establishment of a Ministerial Library, so endowed as to afford an 
annual income for the purchase of such critical and professional 
books as may be needed from year to year. I know of nothing 
that would more surely secure the intellectual and spiritual growth 
of a Society. Here stands the case. A library, suited to the 
daily wants of the minister, — without which, he is embarrassed on 
every question, and hindered in every step of his intellectual 
progress, — cannot be procured at a cost less than fifteen hundred 
or two thousand dollars, a sum which few can command earlier or 
later. Consequently, unless he resides in a large city, or in the 
neighborhood of the University, where are large public libraries, 
he is kept back in his intellectual career, is narrowed down and 
dwarfed, and can never furnish that fresh and vigorous thought 
which comes from intercourse with the best minds of all ages and 
climes. Xow, suppose there were a fund invested sufficient to 
yield annually the moderate sum of one hundred dollars, who 
cannot see what a valuable library would be accumulated during 
a single ministry of half a century 1 The parish that possessed 
such a rich treasure would be most attractive to the young candi- 
date ; and, whenever vacancies should occur, could easily secure the 
services of young men of talent, and would essentially aid them in 
the formation of the highest intellectual and spiritual character. 
Some of the most illustrious of the English clergy have lived and 
died in remote country villages ; but, having access to some old 
baronial or parochial library, they have done good service to the 
cause of learning and religion, and been among the shining lights 
of the Church. 

In order to save trouble to the annalist of the Parish a hundred 
years hence, I hasten to correct a slight error which crept into the 
notes to the Sermon which was preached at the dedication of 
the new house. The bequest of Nathaniel Maccarty, Esq., was 
of the chandelier which was destroyed with the old house. The 
clock and tablets were the gift of Mr. Samuel B. Scott. 

I take pleasure in adding, that, since the delivery of this Anni- 
versary Discourse, a donation of forty volumes of valuable religious 
works has been made to the Bangs Library from the rich collection 
and by the widow of the late Dr. John Park, so lately passed 
away, — Felix, non vitce tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate 
mortis. 



THE MINISTER AND PARISH 



DISCOURSE 



ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ORDINATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE 



SECOND CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN WORCESTER. 



March 28, 1852. 



BY ALONZO HILL. 



PRINTED FOR Tl^^^RS tffipfiB^^^I^C I E T Y. 



1881 



WORCESTER : 
ANDREW HUTCHINSON, 
1852. 



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